Does it play in Peoria? Not so much Cubs baseball

Cubs Caravan abandons longtime stop to Cardinals and leaves booster club with no means to raise donations

January 16, 2014|By Paul Sullivan, Tribune reporter

Ray Picl, an 86-year-old man in Peoria Heights, who is the head of Chicago Cubs Boosters of Central Illinois. (Daryl Wilson / Chicago Tribune)

The Cubs once cultivated a national following through WGN-TV, the superstation that piped Harry Caray and Ryne Sandberg into viewers' living rooms and made the Wrigley Field rooftops a trendy place to hang.

The new-age Cubs are trying a different tact.

Not only are they considering leaving WGN in 2015, they're alienating some hard-core Cubs fans in Downstate Illinois, resulting in hard feelings and accusations they have surrendered Peoria to the archenemy Cardinals.

The saga began last November when the Cubs told a Peoria booster club they would keep the annual Cubs Caravan nearer to Chicago, depriving it of any players or staff for its fund-raising banquet, traditionally a couple of days before the Cubs Convention.

All it would have taken is a van, a tank of gas and a couple of mid-level prospects to bring in a room full of 1,000 Cubs fans and raise $20,000 for youth leagues and college scholarships. The banquets have been in Peoria every January for four decades, and hundreds of young athletes have benefited.

Why stop now?

Cubs spokesman Julian Green said the team is focusing on local community projects, which they did Thursday during stops at local schools, hospitals and a Marine base, painting murals and serving meals.

"We just looked at the time we spend traveling on the road, and felt that time could be best spent doing some of these meaningful projects," Green said. "We may look to expand some of that, but right now, we were trying to identify community projects here in Chicago."

No one disputes the Cubs' right to do community work in Chicago, and their charitable work is laudable. But it's short-sighted decisions like this that make people wonder whether the Rickettses have any public relations sense whatsoever.

"It seems like they are handing (Peoria) to the Cardinals," said 84-year-old Ray Picl, the president of the Chicago Cubs Boosters of Central Illinois, and longtime organizer of the Cubs Caravan banquet in Peoria.

"That's what I told them when they said they were thinking about not doing the caravan for the first time in more than 40 years. I sent (Chairman) Tom Ricketts an email, but got no response. I'm very disappointed, but I guess I've learned it's a business, not a sport."

Picl said several Downstate youth programs will be affected. The booster club dispenses around $20,000 to 20 or so Little League programs and helps fund scholarships to Bradley University and Illinois Central College.

Picl spends much of the year preparing the event and is heartbroken that it's now history. He treasures his folder full of letters from youth organizations and college students, thanking the boosters for their donations.

The feeling is mutual for 50-year-old Cubs fan Ed Ward of Springfield. Ward said he had brought his kids to Cubs Caravan banquets for more than 20 years, since they were babies. It didn't matter if the Cubs sent backups or prospects. The kids just wanted to see a Cubs player.

"It's like Illinois politics," Ward said. "There's more to Illinois than just Chicago. The whole thing just made me mad. I feel bad for Ray and their whole staff. They put together quite (a charity) event every year.

"It irks me when I see teams like the Twins going through hellacious weather to visit towns three or four hours away, and the Cubs can't even send a busload of prospects down here."

Winter caravans have been part of baseball marketing for decades, and are just getting bigger. Some veterans think a long bus ride to a small town is beneath them, but others get it.

The Twins' 2014 caravan includes stops in more than 50 communities in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The Cardinals' 2014 caravan has 19 stops in Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas and Illinois, where a group will travel Sunday to Peoria, Springfield and Mattoon.

Cardinals phenom Michael Wacha, arguably a bigger name than anyone on the Cubs' roster, is scheduled to make an all-day trip Friday that stops in four towns a couple of hours away from St. Louis.

Wacha gets it.

Peoria is considered predominantly Cubs' territory, with the Cardinals a close second. But last year the Cubs moved their Class A affiliate from Peoria to Kane County, which some see as the main reason for the team canceling the caravan stop.

The Peoria Chiefs went back to being a Cardinals' affiliate, and now are being run by Rocky Vonachen, son of legendary Pete Vonachen, whom Caray often mentioned during Cubs' broadcasts.

Rocky Vonachen said his father's involvement in baseball began when he had caravan lunches at his restaurant during the 1960s and '70s.

Despite being aligned with the Cardinals now, Vonachen doesn't think the Cubs are in danger of losing Peoria to the Cardinals, and believes it's evenly split right now.

"It's fun to listen to each of them," he said. "Currently Cubs fans are frustrated with what's going on with the team leaving (Peoria) and not having the caravan. They're looking for that day when things are turned around."